Star Trek Movie Thinks Your Dad’s a Nerd
This would make sense if they were talking to the offspring of this family. But in actuality, this commercial aired during NBA basketball games on TNT this weekend, meaning the movie’s marketers think people who watch professional sports have fathers that are nerds… I guess? It’s all just very weird. I just can’t imagine the section of the population who watches pro sports and has nerdy father’s is very large. I mean, I’m a nerd, and I watch pro football, but my dad has probably never seen an episode of Star Trek in his life. He doesn’t have a Star Trek. At all.
Actually, I find it hilarious that the Trek marketing is using such a cliched, inappropriate line in order to get mass audiences to the movie. I think it’s smart for them to go after non-nerds, but I think they need to try slightly harder than “not your father’s Star Trek.” Maybe, “not your nerdy, anti-social brother’s Star Trek.” Or, “not that fat guy with the long hair who kept reading Dungeons & Dragons manuals in the student union’s Star Trek.”
About The Author
Robert Bricken is one of the original co-founders of the site formerly known as Topless Robot, and its first editor-in-chief, serving from 2008-12. He brought the site to prominence with “nerd news, humor and self-loathing” as its motto, raising it from total internet obscurity to a readership in the millions, with help from his savage “FAQ” movie reviews and Fan Fiction Fridays. Under his tenure Topless Robot was covered by Gawker, Wired, Defamer, New York magazine, ABC News, and others, and his articles have been praised by Roger Ebert, Avengers actor Clark Gregg, comedian and The Daily Show correspondent John Hodgman, the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Rifftrax, and others. He is currently the managing editor of io9.com. Despite decades as both an amateur and professional nerd, he continues to be completely unprepared for either the zombie apocalypse or the robot uprising.